Soham was only five years old when he got an opportunity to act in Satyajit Ray’s Shakha Proshakha. He says that it has almost become a ritual for him to watch the film on Satyajit Ray’s birthday every year.
“To celebrate Jethu’s (Satyajit Ray’s) birthday on May 2, we make it a point to watch Shakha Proshaka at home every year. There were times, when I visited his house too. I was five years old when jethu cast me in the film. I still remember how he would pamper me on the sets. I was very fond of ice creams and he made sure I got one whenever I wanted. His style of working was simple. He would enact a scene three or four times, so that the actor understood what exactly he wanted. Only then he would take the final shot,” recalled Soham.
Soham had played the nave grandson in Shakha Proshakha who would ask his ailing grandfather what “do numberi” money means and this has become one of the most iconic scenes in Bengali movie history.
Ray had a secret bonding with children. Be it ‘Pather Panchali’ or ‘Agantuk’, he used to handle children like entities on their own. He would often pick them from their urban, educated, modern backdrop to set them in a more rural setting whenever the script would demand and they never looked like out of place. They didn’t even behave or speak like precocious children as we see in many films. Even in his literary works for children he used to follow the same thinking that children are more imaginative than older readers.
